AKSUM UNIVERSITY

SHIRE CAMPUS
SCHOOL OF MINES 1

MINING ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT
FOR 3RD YEAR MINING ENGINEERING
ACADEMIC YEAR 2023/24

C O M P I L E D B Y: - K IBRO M ASSE FA T.
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 Chapter One
General concept on
surface mine
2 design

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 Why we called Surface mining ?

 Because mine is open to the sky where mineral of
interest is being excavated.
 Why is being open to sky important?
 Safety (no stone ceiling above you)
 Health (open exchange of fresh air)
 Mechanization economics
 Fewer confined space limitations – bigger more
productive equipment

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 The choice of method of mining is largely determined by

 Depth,
 Thickness of the mineral bed
 No. of ore seams / mineral veins or lodes
 Geology of the deposit
 Other factors like infrastructure, Market demand etc.

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INTRODUCTION
 The method of mining is unique for each different size and each
shape of the ore body.
 Mineral deposits differ in the shape and orientation of an ore
body, the strength of the ore and surrounding rock, and the type
of mineral distribution.
 These geological features influence the selection of a mining
method and the plan for the ore development.
GENERAL METHODS OF MININIG
 Two types of methods may be used in surface mining:
mechanical extraction and aqueous extraction.

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1.1 Mechanical Extraction Methods

 The mechanical extraction involves mechanical processes to
obtain minerals from the earth. There are four mechanical
extraction methods:
(1) open pit mining,
 An open pit mine is the mine to exploit the deposits which are
outcropping to the surface or those which are confined (limited)
to a shallow (low) depth, and the waste rock lying above
(overburden) is removed and transported away from the place of
their deposition.
(2) open cast mining,
 Opencast is also a surface mine to mine out the flat deposits but
the overburden
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 In open cast (or strip) mining, overburden is removed by casting

into mined-out areas, and mineral is excavated in consecutive
operations.
(3) quarrying,
 The term quarrying, of course, is very loosely applied to any of
the surface mining operations but it should be confined to a
surface mining method to mine out the dimensional stones such
as slate, marble, granite etc.
 Quarrying is a highly specialized small-scale method, slow and
the costliest of all mining methods. Only square set stopping
method is as much expensive as quarrying.

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(4) auger mining.

 Auger mining is a surface mining technique used to recover
additional coal from a seam located behind a high wall produced
either by stripping or open-pit mining. Augering is employed to
recover coal from the high wall at the pit limit. This method is also
specialized but involves low costs.
1.2 Aqueous Extraction Methods
 The deposits are sometimes located near the surface datum but
covered by an aqueous body such as a lake, tank, river, or even by
seawater. Mining of such deposits is also a part of surface mining
practices. These are known as aqueous extraction methods.
 There are two methods of aqueous mining methods, those are;
placer mining and solution mining.
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ADVANTAGES OF SURFACE MINING

1. Higher Productivity
Due to:
• Greater degree of mechanization
• Larger equipment (economies of scale)
• Few personnel required
2. Lower operating costs per ton
Due to:
• Higher productivity
• Easier material handling
• Lower grade deposits can be mined
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3. Reduced development time

• More favorable cash flow and quicker repayment of
capital investment.
• Greater geological certainty.
• Safer operations
4. DISADVANTAGES OF SURFACE MINING
1. Large proportion of waste to ore.
2. High level of environmental impact.
3. Affected by climatic conditions.
4. Depth limit
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 Open pit Terminology
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The following are terms that commonly occur in open pit

mine planning and are used throughout this chapter.
 A bench: may be defined as a ledge that forms a single level of
operation above which mineral or waste materials are mined back
to a bench face. The mineral or waste is removed in successive
layers, each of which is a bench. Several benches may be in
operation simultaneously in different parts of, and at different
elevations in the open pit mine.
 The bench height: is the vertical distance between the highest
point of the bench, or the bench crest, and the toe of the bench.
 The bench slope: is the angle, measured in degrees, between the
horizontal and an imaginary line joining the bench toe and crest.
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 A berm is a horizontal shelf or ledge within the ultimate pit wall

slope. The berm interval, berm slope angle, and berm width are
governed by the geotechnical configuration of the slope.
 The overall pit slope angle is the angle at which the wall of an
open pit stands, as measured between the horizontal and an
imaginary line joining the top bench crest with the bottom bench
toe.
 A spiral system is an arrangement whereby the haul road is
arranged spirally along the perimeter walls of the pit so that the
gradient of the road is more or less uniform from the top to the
bottom of the pit.
 A zigzag or switchback system is an arrangement in which the
road surmounts the steep grade of a pit wall by zigzagging,
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 generally on the footwall side of the pit. The choice of spiral or

zigzag is dependent upon the shape and size of the ore body,
truck economics, and pit slope stability.
 Haul road width is governed by the required capacity of the road
and type of haulage unit.

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 Benching
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• Benching is used to properly patch or extend a slope
• Benching is also used to temporarily support equipment for other
work elements
• Bench detail must be wide enough to support a dozer % slope in
towards the roadway to resist sliding

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 Bench level intervals are to a large measure determined by the

type of shovel or loader used, and these are selected on the basis
of the character of the ore and the manner in which it breaks upon
blasting and supports itself on the working face.

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Quarries in strong rock can sustain about 80 to 85o toe to

crest slopes.
Geology determines limits but about 58 to 72ois a common
range for toe to crest in open pit metal.
Over-all slopes often more conservative Frequently less than
45o.
►Final Pits Slopes allow Benches to be wide enough to Catch
rocks and accommodate A berm. (This is often less than 10
m).
Note: That the toe to Crest slope is much Steeper than the
over-all
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Bench height
The bench height is the vertical distance between each
horizontal level of the pit.
Unless geological conditions dictate otherwise, all benches
should have the same height.
The height will depend on:
I)The physical characteristics of the deposit;
ii)The degree of selectivity required in separating the ore and
waste with the loading equipment; the rate of production;
iii)The size and type of equipment to meet the production
requirements; and
iv)The climatic conditions.
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The bench height should be set as high as possible

within the limits of the size and type of equipment
selected for the desired production.
The bench should not be so high that it will present
safety problems of towering bank of blasted or un-
blasted material.
The bench height in open pit mines will normally range
from 15m in large copper mines to as little as 1 m in
uranium mines.

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 Open Pit Stability

The following are the key items affecting the Open Pit
Stability:
I)Pit slope
ii)Pit wall stability
iii)Rock strength
iv)Pit Depth
v)Pit diameter
vi)Water Damage
vii)Strip Ratio (SR)

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The Ideal conditions for Opencast Mining are as follows;

1. Thickness of ore seams - > 5m
2. Flat gradient - < 1 in 6
3. Strike length - > 1 km
4. No. of seams - Less the better, with higher thickness
5.Ore without stone bands
6. Free from surface structures / features.
7. Preferably non-forest land.
8. Availability of adequate place for dumping.
9. Stripping ratio depending on quality of the coal
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Life of Mine
We can calculate the life of mine based on the following
rules;
1. Taylor’s Rule
Life of mine t = 0.2 × Reserves 0.25
2. Modified Taylor’s Rule
Life of mine t = 0.165 × Reserves 0.25
3. Zwaigain Rule
Life of mine t = f -1× Reserves 0.25

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Thumb rule for expected production rate

1. Taylor’s Rule
The optimum extraction rate = 5 × Reserves 3/4 / days per year
2. Mosher Rule
The extraction rate = 200 x Reserves½ /(days per year)
3. Herbert Hoover & Rice Rule
30 m vertical depth / year ( for steeply inclined minerals)

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Working pit slope angle’s influencing parameters: bench

height, ramp-width, number of benches.
Final pit slope angle’s influencing parameters: safety-
berm’s width and bench height.
Bench angle or slope
It should be kept vertical but in practice it is difficult to
maintain. Also it depends upon type of strata. Usually in
practice it is kept to be 60°–80° to the horizontal for the
working or active benches; and 45°–60° for non-working
benches.

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 OVERALL PIT SLOPE ANGLE
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Geometrically overall pit slope angle can be

computed as follows.

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► In general, some advantages of designing open pit mines with

higher benches can be mentioned as follows .
 Less numbers of machinery will be utilized that are larger in size
and have more capacity. Larger machinery means more
productivity and efficiency and less volume of traffic;
 Less time is required for set up and maintenance of equipment;
 Supervision on all the operations will be more practical;
 Blasting of greater blocks is possible, and as a result; more
production is yielded from each level.
 Maintaining bench area involves a cost:
 •Less bench area = less cost.
 •Higher benches are cheaper (usually).
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► There are also some disadvantages with utilizing higher

benches .
 Capability for selective extraction is decreased;
 Dilution is increased;
 Work space and as a result, flexibility of operation is decreased
for the machinery;
 Safety issues will be more serious.
 In drilling for blasting it takes time to set up for every hole
drilled:
 Higher benches allow larger more accurate holes.
 Allow greater spacing –uses drill time more effectively.

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 Open-pit mining sequence (for pipe-like ore body)
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STRIPPING RATIO
 It is the ratio of Overburden + inter-burden thickness
to the Cumulative thickness of coal seams
 It is a critical and important parameter in pit design and
scheduling. Stripping ratio refers to the ratio of the volume of
overburden (or waste material) required to be removed to the
volume of ore recovered. Expressed in tons of waste to tons of
ore in hard rock open pit operations.
 For example, a 3:1 stripping ratio means that mining one cubic
meter of ore will require mining three cubic meters of waste rock.

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 Declining Stripping ratio method
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1. Each bench to be mined in sequence, all the waste is

removed till the pit limit
2. All equipment working on the same bench
3. Requirement of equipment less towards the end of mine
4. Contamination from upper benches eliminated
5. Overall cost of mining high during initial stages
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 Increasing Stripping ratio method
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1. Waste is mined out to the extent as needed to extract mineral

2. Working slopes parallel to the overall pit slope
3. Operating large number of narrow benches, frequent shifting
of equipment
4. Requirement of equipment more towards the end of mine
5. Overall cost of mining is minimum during initial stages

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 Constant Stripping ratio method
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1. Remove waste at a rate approximated to the overall stripping ratio

2. Working slopes is shallow and increases with depth and ultimately
equals to the overall pit slope
3. Equipment fleet size and labour strength constant through the life of the
mine
4. Requirement of equipment increases gradually with depth
5. Overall cost of mining is low during initial stages

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 Open pit Mining method
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۞ Open pit mining has the following characteristics.

 Mine working open to the surface.
 It is usually employed to exploit a near-surface deposit or one
that has a low stripping ratio.
 Operation designed to extract mineral deposits that lie close to
the surface.
 It is used when the orebody is near the surface and little
overburden (waste rock) needs to be removed.
 Large hole exposes the ore body.
 Waste rock (overburden) is removed.
 It often necessitates a large capital investment but generally
results in high productivity, low operating cost, and good safety
conditions.
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